Audio Hardware

[hereitcomes]

Long time lurker/information hoarder, first time poster

I'm already competely sold, and know that software is more than capable of playing, say, flac audio. My question is: is the hardware capable of producing high quality sound, such that you could hear the benefits of flac audio over compressed audio?

Thanks, can't wait! I might even tinker with some dev too

 

[joa]

Long time lurker/information hoarder, first time poster

I'm already competely sold, and know that software is more than capable of playing, say, flac audio. My question is: is the hardware capable of producing high quality sound, such that you could hear the benefits of flac audio over compressed audio?

Thanks, can't wait! I might even tinker with some dev too

Depends on the quality of the audio controller used in the pandora, I think you would be able to hear the benefits though depends on your hifi/headphones.

sorry if this has already been asked but does anyone know the audio controller the pandora will have? Then we can answer the q with a bit more certainty

 

[bigtruck]

It's by Burr Brown, I don't know if we've been told exactly what it is yet though.

 

[joa]

For a device the size of the pandora, Burr Brown is about as good as it gets!

 

[Kyo]

I heard it was very good

 

[zxxgp]

I would think space for flac would be more of an issue then the sound quality of the pandora hardware. Flac takes up a lot of space so unless you plan on taking a hard drive with you it is not going to be to practical. I know the pandora has dual SD card slots but i am assuming you are going to want more on your 2 SD cards then just music.

 

[Drack]

More importantly, are there ALSA(/some other sound server) drivers for this chip?

 

[hereitcomes]

I suppose yes the space issue is there, I mostly wanted an idea of the quality it will be capable of. An album in flac is around 300mb so a 3gb card can squeeze roughly 10 albums... not too bad considering the 16gb ones are starting to do the rounds which would get you 50 albums, if you wanted to have a music card and an apps/games card for example.

 

[Fishbong]

Where do you buy 3GB SD cards? :huh:

 

[hereitcomes]

i was just using 3 for simple maths..... not that anything else would have been strikingly difficult.

 

[logokas]

The latest blog entry already demonstrated the capability of the sound hardware, didn't it?

Sounded pretty crisp to me.

 

[hereitcomes]

yeah it sounded good, but that's a demonstration of it coming through our own sound hardware, after compression too.

 

[nubie]

I don't think there would be an issue with using a USB DAC anyway , it runs Linux and has full USB after all.

Not that you would necessarily want to do that in a portable sense, but at least it is an option, unlike many other handheld platforms.

You might be able to hook a 1.8" HDD up for extended storage, they have hit 250GB now!!

 

[ish420]

I forget where I read that the superior sound was a very important thing for the devs. And that it is separate from the rest of the board. This is for removing that annoying slight buzzing white noise you get from laptop headphone jacks. I was also wondering if RockBox will get a Pandora port.

 

[CronoTrig]

I forget where I read that the superior sound was a very important thing for the devs. And that it is separate from the rest of the board. This is for removing that annoying slight buzzing white noise you get from laptop headphone jacks. I was also wondering if RockBox will get a Pandora port.

Probably not, unless all you want to do with your Pandora is listen to music.

 

[polkunus]

first of all, this has been asked many times, but it has been announced somewhere that the pandora has better sound quality than studio quality. the sound quality on the pandora can probably replace your ipod to a certain extent.

 

[JerryG20]

first of all, this has been asked many times, but it has been announced somewhere that the pandora has better sound quality than studio quality. the sound quality on the pandora can probably replace your ipod to a certain extent.

"Studio quality"? That's a misleading statement that the Pandora has better sound quality than "studio quality." First of all, sound quality is subjective (there's a reason why there are so many different successful DACs, amplifiers, and speakers that sound different). I highly doubt the Pandora has better audio hardware than a "studio." Burr Brown does make some decent/nice DACs, but that doesn't mean that the Pandora will use one of their higher quality ones/one of the many that have given Burr Brown a good reputation. Also, the headphone amplifier will also affect sound quality and we don't have much detailed information it. The few specs that were posted for the DAC were nothing out of the ordinary for a DAC in a portable device in this day & age (it was funny seeing people who didn't seem to really be into high-end audio interpret the specs to mean that the Pandora will have amazing, hi-end sound quality; reminds me of the "do the math" thing with the Atari Jaguar). Lastly, "good" specs does not equate to "good" sound quality (people can't tell if they're going to like the sound quality of a piece of audio equipment simply based on specs...).

Note: I'm not saying the Pandora will sound like crap, but I'm also not saying it will sound great. None of us except those who have dev-boards should be commenting on the sound quality because you can't say anything about how it sounds until you hear it.

 

[polkunus]

first of all, this has been asked many times, but it has been announced somewhere that the pandora has better sound quality than studio quality. the sound quality on the pandora can probably replace your ipod to a certain extent.

"Studio quality"? That's a misleading statement that the Pandora has better sound quality than "studio quality." First of all, sound quality is subjective (there's a reason why there are so many different successful DACs, amplifiers, and speakers that sound different). I highly doubt the Pandora has better audio hardware than a "studio." Burr Brown does make some decent/nice DACs, but that doesn't mean that the Pandora will use one of their higher quality ones/one of the many that have given Burr Brown a good reputation. Also, the headphone amplifier will also affect sound quality and we don't have much detailed information it. The few specs that were posted for the DAC were nothing out of the ordinary for a DAC in a portable device in this day & age (it was funny seeing people who didn't seem to really be into high-end audio interpret the specs to mean that the Pandora will have amazing, hi-end sound quality; reminds me of the "do the math" thing with the Atari Jaguar). Lastly, "good" specs does not equate to "good" sound quality (people can't tell if they're going to like the sound quality of a piece of audio equipment simply based on specs...).

Note: I'm not saying the Pandora will sound like crap, but I'm also not saying it will sound great. None of us except those who have dev-boards should be commenting on the sound quality because you can't say anything about how it sounds until you hear it.


hmm.. away from this discussion but i also remember that the sound is in a different power...(dam i have it on the top of my tongue, but don't remember) so you will not hear the "crackling" sound like on onboard soundcards.

 

[Cesartron]

I doubt that the pandora has the same sound quality than Cowon, iRiver or Meizu, although it would be very nice. However I hope that Pandora have the same audio quality that an ipod or better

 

[Enverex]

I can't find a more recent thread about this, nor is there an answer from the crew about the thread subject itself, so can someone 'in the know' clarify the quality of the on-board sound and what we're likely to expect from it? (I generally use my Sennheiser HD580 Precision or UE700 headphones with portable devices and I have seriously anal hearing so I do notice the difference in these things).

EDIT: Sorry, ignore this, the search function decided to play nice after a while.